Quote:
...This device would receive and store the high resolution downloads from the downloading PC. Each high resolution track or the entire album would be transferred to internal memory for playback instead of directly from the hard drive. If this device was small enough it could temporarily connected to the downloading PC to keep that type of hardware as far from the audio playback equipment as possible. The music playback device would be connected connected to a pre-amp analog inputs for music playback.
Anyway, that's my two cents. I hope someone out there is listening.

Kind of sounds like where Sooloos/Linn/Transporter, etc. are heading anyway, no? With people streaming music from NAS?

A number of companies are already doing pretty close to what you describe. I use HDTracks and along with CD resolution files they have a selection of 24/96 files. It's not subscription based however, it's more of an iTunes model with prices per song or album. I play them through my Transporter. It might take awhile but I really think this is where a fairly large segment of the market is headed. At first I thought I'd miss not having a physical CD but that's turned out not to be the case. The music comes with a PDF file with the cover art and liner notes which for me, covers that part of it. Everything is backed up in two different places, once by Time Machine on my Mac and another that I just physically drag to an external drive from time to time.